xi blind ix wrote:I would first like to congratulate the Silver Creek Entertainment development team for creating such a successful game as Soltrio Solitaire.

I have played through the various modes and have tackled them all except for 'Archway Solitaire.'

It appears I am not alone in my struggle, but are there any tips or tricks that you could let us gamers know to complete this monster? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I'm still trying to beat it, but here are some strategies I've gathered:

1) Rapid Redeal: use the buttons Y,X,X,X in rapid succesion and you've started a new game.
2) The Least playable cards: Aces and Kings cannot be played until you play 12 other cards of the same suit. Therefore, use the Rapid Redeal technique to get a layout with little-to-no Aces and Kings in the Tableau. Those cards block play.
3) The Most playable cards: The archway cards are playable at anytime and always available. You should play from the Tableau as much as possible to release the remaining cards.
4) Safe-Play cards: If you need a card and the Archpile has both copies of that card, play it. Since the game is two-decks, there are only two of each card. That means when you see them both, that card is not in the Tableau.
5) Autoplay off: Autoplay spoils a lot of strategy in Soltrio games. You sometimes need to determine which build, up or down, will allow you to play cards from the Tableau.
6) Look ahead: if a card can be released by playing the card on top of it, give preference to its pile.
7) Freecell: if you're lucky enough to empty an entire column, you can use the space for one card. That means that any two cards from the column are available. Pick the pair that will help you play the most cards to the foundation.
8 ) Flipping Foundations: if the upper foundation in a suit is one more in rank than the lower, you can play any card of that suit to the foundations. This is achieved by taking cards from one foundation and putting them in the other foundation in the same suit. You can go up or down, so I recommend using the Look-Ahead method to choose the best available card.
9) Take it slow: the games I came closest to winning were by taking the time to use the techniques.